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The indicator measures the relative proportion of yellow pine forests in the Tahoe Region in less than mature seral stage stands. The relative abundance of small tree dominated stands is important because it provides a measure of forest sustainability; without young trees, Tahoe’s forests will not be sufficiently stocked to replace dead and dying trees over time. To produce spatial and structural heterogeneity in Tahoe's forest stands, the TRPA Code of Ordinances allows for the creation of forest openings of up to eight acres to achieve adopted management standards, and USDA Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit's Land Management Plan encourages the creation of openings of varying sizes and shapes that retain reserve trees and clumps.
Estimated percent cover of yellow pine forest, displayed in light yellow on the chart, as tree size-class <11 inches diameter at breast height. Data is from LTBMU EcObject, a forest-wide Region 5 Remote Sensing Lab vegetation data set that incorporates Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) into the mapping process. It is created from a multi-resolution segmentation of LiDAR-derived tree approximate objects and a 1-m canopy height model, which were then aggregated by stand and tree-level ecologic relationships.
- Status
- Considerably Worse Than Target
- Trend
- Little or No Change
- Confidence
- Moderate
- The yellow pine forest (including eastside pine, Jeffrey pine, Sierra mix conifer, lodgepole pine, and white fir) covers 57 percent of the Tahoe Region, including 14 percent immature.
- Since the last reporting period, updated analysis methods have significantly changed the results of red fir forest abundance making trends incomparable.
- Forest composition changes over a longer time scale than the four-year reporting cycle of threshold evaluations.
Vegetation Type
- This indicator measures the relative proportion of tree stands classified in seral stages other than mature for yellow pine and red fir forests in the Lake Tahoe Region. For this evaluation, “seral stages other than mature” was equated with stands dominated by small diameter trees (less than 10.9-inches diameter at breast height). The relative abundance of small-tree dominated stands is important because it provides a measure of forest sustainability; without young trees, Tahoe’s forests will not be sufficiently stocked to replace dead and dying trees over time. Today, Tahoe’s forests are dominated by an intermediate age/size class ranging in diameter from 11 inches to 23 inches due to past Comstock-era logging and ongoing fire suppression (Raumann and Cablk, 2008b; Taylor, 2007). The area in the Region dominated by Jeffery pine forest has increased since 2003 (USFS LTBMU, 2015).
- The primary natural driver in creating patches of small diameter trees in the Lake Tahoe Region is wildfire and other natural disturbances events. Recent forest management practices have focused on reduction of understory fuel loads in the wildland urban interface. Only now are basin agencies beginning to plan treatments for multi-values in the larger forest landscape that could contribute to standard attainment.
EIP Action Priorities
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Restore Native Vegetation and Forest Communities
The primary activities in this EIP action priority include reforestation and replanting after destructive fires to protect and restore native forest species.
- Considerably worse than target. Immature yellow pine forest covers 61% percent of the Region, according to new and up to date analysis methods (exceeding the high end of target range by 36). Past evaluations have also indicated that the Region was not within the desired range.
- Little to no change. No major disturbance events (e.g. fires, disease, clearing) that would have significantly altered the extent of vegetation communities in the Region occurred with the exception of the 176-acre Emerald fire.
- High. Forest managers use best available technology and field reconnaissance to map and classify vegetation types throughout the Lake Tahoe Region about every five years; U.S. Forest Service vegetation mapping procedures meet regional and national vegetation mapping standards (FGDC, 1997; Warbington et al., 2011). Because vegetation communities are broadly defined and thus encompass larger spatial extents than individual habitat types, variation in the status and trend of the vegetation community richness indicator is not obvious at the relatively short time scales for which the indicator is remapped and reassessed. The accuracy assessment of TMU_Strata_07 map used for this summary was completed by the U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region - Remote Sensing Lab
- Moderate. There is moderate to high confidence that in the absence of disturbance events (e.g. fires, disease, clearing) the spatial extent of the vegetation communities at the Region scale does not change considerably over a four-year period.
- Moderate
No photos available.
No documents available.
April 2017. EcObject Vegetation Map v2.1 Product Guide. USDA Forest Service, R5 Remote Sensing Lab.